No more land for government!
By Henry Lamb
web posted December 16, 2002
Government is getting too grabby. No one questions the
authority of government to "take" land for a legitimate public
purpose, provided, of course, that no "...private property shall
be taken for public use without just compensation."
The Constitution provides explicit guidance about "public use"
for which land may be taken: "...for the Erection of Forts,
Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful buildings."
Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the taking of land for
open space, critical habitat, viewsheds, or economic
development zones. Nevertheless, all across the country,
government at every level, is taking land for these purposes.
And, increasingly, government is finding ways to avoid paying
just compensation for its acquisitions.
Our founders came from a society in which government owned
all the land. In the old country, people could use the land only to
the extent that their use of it may please the Crown. This
condition was a compelling reason for people to risk their lives
crossing the Atlantic, in hopes of securing their own property. It
is clear that our founders intended for the land to be owned by
individuals - not by government.
The concept of private land ownership was not even questioned
in America, until early in the 20th century, when
environmentalists saw that socialism - government ownership of
land - was a way to protect the forests. Robert Marshal, Aldo
Leopold, and Benton Mackaye, who founded The Wilderness
Society, advocated the nationalization of all forests as early as
1933.
Seventy years later, the government has effectively "nationalized"
virtually all the nation's forests, and wetlands, and deserts, and
even farmland. Through the use of eminent domain, governments
at every level are simply buying all the land they can afford to
buy - with your tax dollars.
The remaining 58 percent of the land still in private ownership
has been effectively "taken" by land-use regulations.
Sophisticated legal theories have been developed to convince
judges that restrictions on land use do not rise to the level of a
Constitutional "taking." After all, the argument goes, a landowner
may still pay taxes on his land, and may even walk on it,
providing he does not step on a red-legged frog, or bruise a
milk-weed - for which severe fines may be imposed.
When government deprives a landowner of the use of his land,
for all practical purposes, the government has taken the land.
Environmentalists, and others, who challenge this conclusion,
should consider this: if government is empowered to take away
the use of land from its owners, the same power can take away
the use of an automobile from its owner.
The automobile owner could keep his car, polish it, make
payments on it, pay insurance, and even sit in it. But he could not
use it to produce a livelihood. This is precisely what government
has done to landowners.
If we allow government the power to take land from private land
owners, we are empowering government to take any private
property it may desire, which is the power to force citizens to
live as government dictates. This is serfdom, as F.A. Hayek
warned us about, in his book, The Road to Serfdom, originally
published in 1944.
This same political philosophy has spelled out in great detail how
people should live: in sustainable communities, surrounded by
government-controlled green-belts (also called buffer zones), as
transitional open space to wilderness areas connected by
corridors for wildlife.
We are allowing our government to amass the same power
exercised by kings and dictators. We are allowing our
government to become the same omnipotent power that
compelled our forefathers to risk their lives to escape.
We can't escape. But we can correct. The heat of government
oppression has risen slowly over the last century. The waters of
discontent are not yet boiling, but the steam is certainly rising.
Across the land, people are recognizing that government power
to control our lives - must be limited.
Perhaps the most important place to draw a line in the dirt, is
across the remaining private property in the United States. No
more land for the government. Government land, owned for any
purpose other than those limited uses authorized by the
Constitution, should be returned to the states, or sold to private
owners.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental
Conservation Organization, and chairman of Sovereignty
International.
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